Those CHICOM (potato masher) grenades in the foreground...I had our marine EOD disarm a number of those for me on my first tour in country and brought them back stateside in '69....I donated those and all the rest of the captured items I had to the Seabee Mueseum, Port Hueneme, California. The new mesuem is going to be commissioned next year, so if any of you ever get up into Ventura County stop in and look-see....Chief

I was South of An Loc on Hwy 13, Thunder Road , & at that time, there wasn't any " tank to tank " fighting for us. I am sure there was plenty of Armor in Cambodia just waiting for us to leave, though.
Good pix. I have some others & some I probably shouldn't post , too.

When they rolled out of Cambodia in the Easter 1972 attack, they brought hundreds of sophisticated Russian-built tanks, track-mounted AAA guns and armored vehicles in a never seen before Warsaw Pact style battle. Unfortunately for them, their armor frequently outran the infantry and were in the open unprotected from air attack.

Their logistics was very poor for tanks and armor as well. We saw many cases where they had 55-gal drums filled with extra fuel strapped to the rear deck of the tanks during battle. A straffing run with even a .30 cal machinegun would pierce the drums of fuel and set the whole vehicle on fire. Not good!

My unit killed dozens of them during the battle of An Loc. 3 1/2 Divisions of NVA were also decimated. Sucks to be them!

What unit were you in ? I was in a cav unit of the First Infantry Division. Lai Khe , on #13 , was our base .

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I was in the 1st Air Cav., callsign Blue Max. The giant 1st Infantry patch carved out in the trees SW. of An Loc was always a pleasure to see from the air as we headed north to the fight. I was in the 1st Infantry at Ft. Riley for several years after Vietnam. You know what they say, "If you're going to be one, be a Big Red One"!

Lai Khe was where we staged out of for the big fight at Loc Ninh and An Loc. Crashed into the perimeter wire in a battle damaged Cobra there on the north end of the airstrip. We almost made it back, the engine just couldn't hold on for a couple more seconds.

Did the Cobras knock out some of those tanks ? What armament if so ? How did the U.S. tanks fare in the battle ? The U.S. had M-48 tanks over there with 90mm guns , even though there were plenty of newer , much better M-60's with 105mm's in inventory. There were some units, such as 11th ACR that traded in their M-48's for the M551's . If I remember right, our M-48 Tankers only kept about 3 heat [ anti-tank ] rounds onboard. I am sure that scenario changed in a hurry once Russian armor started crossing into the country. I would like to have seen a " tank duel , " BUT only if we won !

Esteban, yes my unit was credited with the first Russian-built tank kills of the war. We knocked out dozens of them at An Loc. We used 11 lb. HEAT rockets in our 2.75" rocket pods to do the job. Cobras also had 20mm Vulcan canons on the wing with AP rounds that did an excellent job.

The American tankers had all been pull out of Vietnam at this point of the war and while the ARVN's had 48's I'm not aware that they ever engaged any of the NVA tanks. They all pretty much dropped their guns and ran home to mommasan during this offensive.

The AC-130's Spectre gunships were especially effective against the tanks. U.S. TAC Air was also all over them with their bombs.

At An Loc the chief adviser on the ground, Col. Bill Miller convinced the ARVN that the M-72 LAW would also do the trick by going out of his bunker and shooting some of them. Here's a picture of the rearend of one of those T-54's with Col. Miller standing next to it.

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I knew you had the 20mm cannons but not the other rounds. Glad you busted them ! Yep, the LAW would do it, too,,, if it fired !! ARVNS ran a lot in some of the battles. I never had much use for them, & we didn't trust any of them. Allies by day,, enemy by night,, many of us thought.
Was it at An Loc,, or Loch Ninh that a U.S. officer crawled onto a bridge, planted explosives, & blew it up his request for a bombing run, or artillery was denied ??

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